Planners should consider lengthening Fall Break
Baylor, Southern Methodist and Rice universities all have two days scheduled for their fall breaks. To allow students time to relax and visit families out of state, TCU should follow their leads.
COMMENTARY
David Reese

For the past three years, Fall Break has come and gone for me with no exciting adventures or stories to tell.

This year will be different. I’ll be traveling to California to be the man of honor in my sister’s wedding.

But the idea of a single-day break from classes is unusual.

Provost William Koehler said by e-mail that “the idea of a ‘fall’ break actually originated from the tradition of Spring Break.” He stated that students said the time between the beginning of classes in the fall and the Thanksgiving break was much too long and stressful.

I don’t think many students would disagree.

Koehler said a compromise was to cancel classes on a Friday in the middle of the Fall semester, with no significance attached to which Friday. So, why not a full week if the holiday was based on the tradition of Spring Break?

Now a week may be a bit much since about a month and a half later, TCU gives the faculty, staff and students two days off for Thanksgiving. But does one day off really give students enough extra time to rest and rejuvenate to start the second half of the semester?

Of course not.

Many students do not have Friday classes anyway so the holiday is of no benefit to them. And many professors assign papers or schedule midterms for the next week which means that the studious will spend the extra day studying. Where is the break for those students?

When the planners of the academic calendar begin work for next year, I hope they’ll consider two possibilities.

First, why not make Fall Break two days — Thursday and Friday or a Monday and Tuesday. Southern Methodist University and Rice University both have Monday, Oct. 14, and Tuesday, Oct. 15, scheduled as their Fall Break, according to their Web sites. Baylor University lists Thursday, Oct. 18, and Friday, Oct. 19, scheduled as Fall Break.

TCU is often compared to these universities and as much as it likes to be a trend setter, perhaps it should follow their lead. If that does not set well with the planners, then how about an extra day during Thanksgiving?

Many of TCU’s vision statements reflect the university’s hope to become “a prominent private university recognized for our global perspective, our diverse and supportive learning community…”

If that’s true — and I believe it is — then the university must search farther than the Texas borders to find quality faculty and students.

This means that many of those people have a long way to travel to visit their families and friends for the holidays. The official university closing time is 5 p.m. Wednesday prior to Thanksgiving. That’s simply unacceptable since Thanksgiving is the most traveled holiday of the year.

Let’s at least take a look.

News editor David Reese is a senior journalism news-editorial and speech communication major from Oceanside, Calif.